I can believe that one person was dumb enough to put a metric like that somewhere. But how could an organization be filled with people unable to recognize the systemic effect of highlighting that, the perverse incentives it gives?
The US military does same with with commissioned officers (called "up or out"). If you're passed over twice for promotion you leave. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_or_out
Hmm, after looking at that page I see this is quite a common practice. I hope my competitors use it!
Marisa Mayer at Google famously had a gaggle of special junior PMs that she shepherded into high ranking roles.
Got some source on that? I'm curious now ...